My migraine is gone! I’ll tell you how

Hello, I am 29 years old and I suffered from migraine almost all my life. Now it seems (finger crossed!) that my migraine is gone. Before you start: no, I’m not selling you anything and I don’t have a magic potion, that’s simply my story of drug intoxication and it could help some of you maybe..

I always had headaches, like everybody in my family. In high school I used to take painkillers every attack. In college, attacks intensified and I used more and more painkillers. When I start working (stressful job, multiple hours in front of the screen, three languages spoken at the same time) it became terrible. I started with triptans, and they worked for a while. I moved to the US and my migraines started to kill me, they would last 48 hours and make me throw up and cry. I’ve seen many neurologists, one in the US and many in Italy (I’m Italian and I don’t have a good American insurance, but with public health in Italy I could see the best European doctors). Nobody could help me. They gave me topamax and other stuff (sorry don’t know the name in English) and I started getting side-effects: weight loss, stomachache, IBS, depression, dizziness.. My life was a nightmare, I even thought of leaving my PhD (also because every doctor would tell me that I was unable to cope with stress and probably my American lifestyle was not healthy enough, even though I stay in Colorado). I tried yoga, acupuncture and I started to see a psychologist. Nothing.

One day I decided I had enough. I stopped taking every medicine, included the birth control pill. For two days I felt so sick I wanted to die. But I resisted with no painkillers or triptans. After that, my attacks became less intense. I used to have one a week, but quickly it became one a month, and now it is almost three months I don’t have one, despite work, stress, jetlag and junk food. My stomach is so much better and my friends are saying that finally I’m getting back to my normal self, which was lost last year.

I asked one of my Italian neurologists and she said that probably I was intoxicated by medicines. I never took more than the suggested dose, but for me it was too much because I was addicted. My migraine was just my body saying it wanted more stuff.

I don’t know if it works for everybody. It worked for me. My migraine was caused by the painkillers that I used to cure it. It is crazy but now I feel so much better…

Good luck to all of you!

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